Monday, December 8, 2008

The Intercloud

Cloud computing, the Internet rave of the hour. Well Virginia I have some problems with it. For a little while now I have been doing some of my work in Google Docs. I'll admit it is handy for what it does, and it's absolutely perfect for what is does not. Mind you I am not a typical person in my computing habits. I move from computer to computer, even inside my own house. I move from OS to OS between work and home and I am liable to be without connectivity for days at a time.

I have a single piece of technology that I carry with me everywhere, my PDA. Not a cell phone PDA, just a normal run of the mill embedded windows PDA. I have been know to write articles and short stories using nothing but that. However even giving that a miss, what is truly missing from Google Docs (or atleast I cant find it) is a way to sync between the online version of something to an offline device and then back again. Oh and did I mention that versioning while not a requirement would be really really nice. Until such time as something like that exists, where I can seamlessly move from connected to disconnected and back again without ever actually knowing that I have done so, cloud computing is ever so aptly named, a lot of vapor with no substance.

Yes I know, I can just use a thumbdrive and carry my stuff with me as I move from computer to computer and connected states. Thats not the point, you want to sell me on cloud computing, I need to be able to work in the fashion that my life takes me. I like Google Docs, I do, just that for me it's fairly limited in application. I use it now as a place to do Blog articles mostly as I can export directly to my blathering spot. On rare occasion will I use it as a collaborative tool instead of just emailing versions of documents around. Thats it, and for me, thats not enough to be a full fledged functioning killer app, and of the cloud computing hooha, it's the ONLY thing that even remotely interests me.

nuff saidHave funAzerthoth.

*edit*For Blogging purposes. It's fantastic as I can handle revision control, editing, draft, and research and one touch publish all from a single interface. I thought I would say something nice about it, and that is really nice.*/edit*

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The posts here are things I have had to teach myself or had to hunt down information on. Regardless I hope the information I have collected or pulled my hair out over saves someone else from doing the same.

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